A large number of retirements all at once is causing the Cheboygan County Road Commission to fill several positions in its workforce.Road Commission Managing Director Mike Roper said there is a potential for 8 to 10 employees to retire in the next four months or so. Already, two truck drivers have retired, and four additional letters of retirement will need to officially be accepted by the Road Commission Board at its meeting on Thursday for a truck driver, mechanic, state foreman and county foreman.

"Road Commissioners don't have a lot of turnover generally; there may be one or two openings a year typically," Roper said. "This is a big chunk of the work force retiring at the same time."

The biggest challenge will be losing the experience of the retiring employees, Roper said.

"New people are good; they are ambitious and they want to work," Roper said. "But they don't have the experience from the years of doing the job."

Roper noted that certain positions are normally filled from within, so in those cases the vacancies will give current employees a chance to advance.

"We don't typically hire foremen or supervisors from the outside, but we do hire entry level truck drivers and mechanics," Roper said.

He said that two new truck drivers have already been hired, and two mechanics have been hired that will start in January. Not all the vacancies may be filled immediately, he explained.

"We are probably not going to replace the positions 100 percent right now," Roper said. "By the time the others leave, it will be the end of February or March, so we should be able to squeak through the winter. We will likely go through the summer a little leaner than normal due to not taking care of the rest areas any more, and we will have to decide next fall how many to hire to make it through the winter."

In an unrelated decision, the Road Commission Board voted at its Dec. 10 meeting to approve a request for a 2.7 percent increase in salaries for the Road Commission's four non-union administrative staff members. Roper said the staff is down one person from the end of 2011 and has handled the workload without having replaced the position.